, the world's leading anti-bribery standard setting organization, announces the release of a new edition of the

TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix

, a global business bribery risk assessment tool. The TRACE Matrix was originally published in 2014 to meet a need in the business community for more reliable, nuanced information about the risk of commercial bribery worldwide. It addresses the risk of bribe demands within each country, rather than the conduct of the companies or citizens of a country when they are doing business overseas. The 2017 edition introduces several substantive and methodological improvements, increasing the model's robustness.

TRACE has expanded the range of sources from which it draws the underlying data for its risk-score calculations, allowing greater flexibility in responding to changes in data availability. Additionally, adjustments were made to the way in which scores are calculated for countries with limited data to increase the model's reliability. In the long term, these revisions will allow TRACE to present users with an even greater level of detail about country-specific factors and trends relating to business bribery risk.

The TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix, which is free and publicly available, helps companies examine the conditions that allow commercial bribery to flourish in each country: (1) the nature and extent of government interaction with the private sector; (2) the existence and enforcement of anti-bribery laws; (3) the degree of governmental transparency; and (4) the ability of civil society to monitor and expose corruption.

For each of these four "domains" (and related subdomains), the TRACE Matrix aggregates data obtained from leading public interest and international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. Based on statistical analysis of this information, each country is assigned not only an overall score between 1 and 100—with 100 representing the greatest risk—but also scores for each of the four domains and nine subdomains. This detailed information can help companies tailor their compliance and due diligence practices to the specific risks presented in each country and to better allocate limited compliance resources.

Changes to both content and method, mean users should exercise caution when comparing the new country scores to those published in previous years. While top-level risks scores are markedly lower this year, this is primarily due to refinements in the methodology rather than a drop in worldwide corruption levels. In the updated edition of the TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix, Sweden, New Zealand and Norway continue to place among the five least risky countries, along with newcomers Finland and the United Kingdom. The five riskiest countries for bribery are Somalia, ranked last among 200 countries, Venezuela, Turkmenistan, North Korea and South Sudan respectively.

"We are constantly expanding and improving our tools and resources to meet the evolving needs of the compliance community," said Alexandra Wrage, President of TRACE International. "The release of this updated edition of the TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix, provides companies with greater insight into the specific nature of business bribery risk worldwide."

TRACE is a globally recognized anti-bribery business organization and leading provider of cost-effective third party risk management solutions. Members and clients include hundreds of multinational companies headquartered worldwide. For more information, visit www.TRACEinternational.org.